Danny Jacobs maybe got a little more than he expected from underrated Polish contender Maciej Sulecki, but he earned a clear cut victory in the end after twelve rounds punctuated by a hard knockdown in the final frame. 300 lb heavyweight contender Jarrell Miller was also victorious on the undercard.
Maciej Sulecki (26-1, 10 KOs) had a pretty good opening round to set the tone that this was going to be a competitive fight. Danny Jacobs (34-2, 29 KOs) rebounded in a relatively even second round before taking over with beautiful flurry in the third. The fight felt like it was settling into a rhythm by the fourth round. Sulecki could do real well in spurts with his right hand, but overall he just wasn’t quite good enough to be likely to win a lot of rounds against Danny Jacobs. The Miracle Man’s athletic ability with his countering were just too much.
The fifth round was case in point. In its middle, Maciej got in a pair of beautiful right hands. They were really great shots. Yet, over the course of three minutes, Danny just got so much more done with his fists that a reasonably judge couldn’t possibly have scored the round for the Pole. The sixth was more of the same, but Sulecki upped his work rate to land more right hands in the seventh. It was the first round I scored for him since the first even though most rounds were competitive. He probably won the eighth too without even fighting as well. Suddenly Danny Jacobs was starting to look sluggish.
I thought Danny rebounded well enough to narrowly win the next round, but it wasn’t in the way he was controlling the earlier rounds. The fight had definitely taken on a more rugged demeanor. I liked his work in the tenth too, especially a few moments of body work and then left hooks upstairs. His right hand then really got going in the eleventh. Sulecki rebounded with a nice last minute though to make the round very difficult to score. The twelfth didn’t have that problem though. An epic right hand in the first fifteen seconds of the round put the Polish contender down hard. It looked like a potential fight ender. Not only did Sulecki get up, however, but he came back swinging with some success almost immediately. He ended up warring with Danny Jacobs pretty evenly for the rest of the round.
I scored this fight 116-111 for Danny Jacobs. One card came back the same with the other two one round in either direction at 117-110 and 115-112. I have no issues with these scores.
This was a high level, entertaining middleweight scrap. Maciej Sulecki will probably gain more respect and prestige from this high profile competitive loss than he has from any of his lower key wins. Talking to Max Kellerman after the fight, Jacobs mentioned that he probably should have used the jab more but was otherwise satisfied with his performance. In the end he called out Jermall Charlo for a fought absolutely no one would complain about.
All 303 pounds of Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller (21-0-1, 18 KOs) spent twelve rounds largely beating up Frenchman Johann Duhaupas (37-5, 24 KOs) in the co-main event. The fight had competitive moments, but overall it was one sided over its twelve round duration. Although there is no way it is his best weight, Big Baby somehow holds his extremely heavy frame pretty well in there. Miller has really quick hands and moves them well in combination. He also throws a high volume and maintains his stamina much better than would be expected. Unfortunately he oddly has little power despite his size and record and his defense also gets sloppy at times. These things would likely matter against the top few heavyweights. Here they did not.
